VZCZCXYZ0000
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDG #1355/01 1112107
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 212107Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4487
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI PRIORITY 0036
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS PRIORITY 0147
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA PRIORITY 0327

UNCLAS SANTO DOMINGO 001355 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR WHA/CAR, OES; NAIROBI FOR UNEP OFFICER; GENEVA FOR 
IEA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: DR PGOV SENV
SUBJECT: COMMERCE VS. STEWARDSHIP: BATTLE OF THE DOMINICAN 
NATIONAL PARKS 
 
¶1.  (U) During President Fernandez's recent European trip, 
French investors proposed to him 
a USD600 million tourism investment in Bahia de las Aguilas, 
a pristine undeveloped beach area located inside the 
protected Jaragua National Park in the Southwest.  Dominican 
Secretary of Tourism Felix "Felucho" Jimenez says the project 
 
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will create thousands of direct and indirect jobs in that 
deprived southwestern region of the country.  Environmental 
groups distrust the idea and the biggest skeptic, Secretary 
of the Environment and Natural Resources Max Puig, is biding 
his time.  A similar contest between commerce and stewardship 
occurred in the last days of the Mejia administration, when 
Environment Secretary Frank Moya Pons contained the damage. 
Following a presentation by the French in Santo Domingo on 
April 20, President Fernandez commented that theirs was "a 
concept, not yet a plan." 
 
--------------------- 
The Proposed Project 
-------------------- 
 
¶2.  (U) French company Mogador has declared its interest in 
coordinating the construction of five to six 70-room 
ecologically friendly hotels in the Bahia de las Aguilas 
area, a deserted stretch of pristine beach in the far 
Southwest of the country near Haiti.   Bahia de las Aguilas 
is home to several indigenous rare turtles, mangrove trees, 
and other unique flora and fauna.  The beach is located 
within the Jaragua National Park, which was designated as an 
UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2002. The 2004 Law on National 
Parks, as finally amended following specific objections from 
President Mejia at the strong suggestions of his Environment 
Minister Frank Moya Pons, classifies certain beach areas in 
national parks as available for sustainable tourism 
development. 
 
¶3. (SBU)  French Ambassador France Pozzo di Borgo has 
commented to other diplomats that Mogador is an architectural 
firm, not a hotel operator, implying that the project is as 
yet at the level of a proposal, not a completed, financed 
plan. When the promoters scheduled a semi-public discussion 
in Santo Domingo on April 20, she stayed away.  President 
Fernandez was there, as were the notionally divergent 
Secretaries of Tourism (Felix Jimenez) and Natural Resources 
 
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& the Environment (Max Puig).  The press was allowed for the 
opening moments but then excluded from the actual 
presentation, much to their discontent. 
 
¶4.  (U) Promoters of the Mogador investment say it will bring 
4,000 jobs to the impoverished region.  Secretary Jimenez 
told local news sources that each hotel will need between 
five to six employees per room because these hotels will 
offer specialized services.  This venture will also take 
advantage of the Baharona's underused "Maria Montez" 
international airport, virtually vacant since its opening. 
 
¶5.  (U) In interview on the television program El Dia, 
Jimenez denied that the hotel investment would negatively 
impact the environment.  "Bahia de las Aguilas is the 
essential wealth of the place; damaging the environment with 
reckless development would be an offense against the state." 
 
-------------------- 
Political Alliances 
-------------------- 
 
¶6.  (U) Since the announcement of the French interest in 
Bahia de las Aguilas, local news sources have been 
dramatizing an alleged feud between the Secretary of 
Environment and Natural Resources and the Secretary of 
Tourism.  On the tourism side, Felix Jimenez enthusiastically 
backs the deal and touts the great development prospects, 
while at Environment Max Puig has been openly suspicious of 
developments in the parks.  When the potential tourist 
investment was first announced, several dailies said that 
Puig was outraged at finding out about the development from 
the press.  Jimenez, according to local dailies, said then 
that the Secretary of the Environment chose not to be 
informed about the project.  Reporters say he even called 
Puig an "anti-tourist" who was solely disapproving because of 
his political ideology. 
 
¶7.  (C) Journalists have indeed turned this into a "Felucho 
and Max" Punch-and-Judy show, but there is an enduring 
visceral difference between the two on this subject.  In 
February Puig told the Ambassador that he was appalled to 
 
discover very belatedly that in the last days of 2005, 
Jimenez had gotten Fernandez's signature on decrees 
concerning the parks without ever consulting Puig.  One of 
these constituted a special commission composed of Jimenez, 
Puig, and businessman Marino Ginebra to decide procedures 
concerning natural parks, including authorizing plans for 
exploitation.  Puig said he intended to ask Fernandez to 
revoke the decree. Nothing has come of that. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Embassy contacts in both ministries maintain the 
media blew the differences out of proportion.  Subsecretary 
of Tourism Iris Perez told Econoff there are no problems 
between the two ministries.  Environment officials have 
reiterated that they cannot approve the project until they 
have examined the proposal.  Perez said that Mogador has a 
long-standing relationship with the Ministry of Tourism and 
would soon present its proposal and documentation.  She 
affirmed that the development of Bahia de las Aguilas could 
be sustainable and beneficial, a means of working toward the 
Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Environment Sub-Secretary Zoila Gonzalez told 
Econoff that the ministers have agreed to meet in April to 
discuss the tourism project. Gonzalez did say there are 
certain areas that cannot be developed due to the presence of 
mangroves and turtles, but other areas can be explored. 
Gonzalez was confident that the administration would  "speak 
in one voice." 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Differences between the two ministers are long 
standing.  In 1992, Secretary Puig and ten congressional 
representatives resigned from the Partido de la Liberacion 
Dominicana (PLD) and created the Alianza por la Democracia 
(Democratic Alliance Party).  The Alianza has supported 
Fernandez in his election campaigns.  Secretary Puig has been 
close to Fernandez and served as the National Coordinator for 
the European Development Fund (Lome Convention) in the first 
Fernandez administration.  Jimenez on the other hand has been 
one of the main leaders of the PLD since 1979, campaign 
manager for the most recent presidential bid, and organizer 
of the inauguration festivities.  He now continues his job as 
the Minister for Tourism, the same responsibility he held in 
Fernandez's first administration. 
 
-------------------------------- 
Development in the National Park 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) Daneris Santana, Sub-Secretary of Protected Areas 
and Biodiversity at the Secretariat of the Environment, 
confirmed to a USAID officer that Bahia de las Aguilas is 
under protected status because i is located in the Jaragua 
National Park, ruled y Law for the Protected Areas passed in 
July 2004  In response to an inquiry about talk of  "freed 
areas" (areas liberadas) in the park, Santana sai none of 
the areas are freed or liberated - - alhough the beach areas 
and contiguous land up to alf a kilometer inland in Jaragua 
National Park and in the Parque del Este in the Southeast 
near Byahibe were categorized as "national recreational 
areas."  These areas are subject to the Secretary of 
Environment's approved management plan and dcisions on the 
protected area are taken according to environmental 
regulations.  Santana commented that the Secretariat did not 
want to continue fueling the "press confrontation" between 
the two ministries. 
 
¶12.  (U) USAID has funded a Biosphere Reserve Management Plan 
that provides the Environmental Ministry with the tools to 
determine what to do and what not to do in the different 
areas of the park.  This plan divides the potential area into 
three zones: the Nuclear Zone, the Buffer/Middle Zone, and 
the Transaction Zone.  The nuclear zones are the parks 
themselves -- one notion is to make the Bahia de las Aguilas 
such a protected zone.  Economic activity in the Nuclear Zone 
is to be limited to low impact eco-tourism.  Transition Zones 
are to serve as magnets, attracting economic activity, 
including traditional beach tourism.  Cabo Rojo (located next 
to Bahia de las Aguilas) would be the Transition Zone for 
Bahia de las Aguilas.  Low impact eco-tourism (launch 
excursions) into Bahia de las Aguilas could serve as a prime 
attraction for the hotels in a Cabo Rojo Transition Zone. 
The buffer zone would be a predetermined space between the 
national park and the development area. 
 
13  (U) AID gave this analysis to Secretary Puig in June 
¶2005.  The USAID Officer suggested to Santana that the 
 
Secretariat use this actively. 
 
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¶14. (U) The idea of using Bahia de las Aguilas as a tourism 
destination without the infrastructural development of hotels 
is shared by the Coalition for the Defense of the Protected 
Areas, a collection of environmental groups opposed to 
development there.  President of the coalition Nelson Moreno 
Ceballos told local dailies the organization is not against 
tourism development in the southwestern region, but rather 
against building hotels in Bahia de las Aguilas.  The 
Coalition advocates building them in Pedernales and using 
Bahia de las Aguilas as a visitation area only. 
 
COMMENT 
 
¶14.  (C) The enormous parks in the Southeast and the 
Southwest of the country were established in the early 1990s 
by the autocratic decision of President Balaguer, who 
essentially confiscated those largely empty lands.  There 
were plans to carve out enticing stretches of them during the 
first Fernandez administration, leading to controversy, and 
the framework law passed to administer them went without 
implementing legislation until very late in President Mejia's 
term.  Legislators and business interests were thick as flies 
on a honey jar in early 2004 as Congress was elaborating the 
park legislation, and Environment Secretary Frank Moya Pons, 
a historian and aficionado of the country's natural 
resources, had to choose his battles.  Moya Pons told us then 
that he knew all too well that Mejia would need to yield on 
the beach areas in order to prevail with objections to some 
of the other, more abusive proposals to gerrymander the 
lands.  For example, the version that went to Mejia for 
consideration simply stripped out all of the beach lands by 
excluding from the parks the shore periphery 3 kilometers 
wide.  Mejia's reply to Congress was a bill of objections 
(somewhat similar to line-item vetos with proposed 
substitutions) prepared by Moya Pons that did away with the 
worst changes and altered the beach grab to a 
reclassification of them as "specially administered areas" 
within one-half kilometer of the shoreline.  Congress passed 
the revised bill without further change. 
 
¶15.  (C) Intellectuals both, the historian Moya Pons and the 
leftist polemicist Puig have faced the task of managing the 
parks and other resources for the greater good of the 
country.  Puig has appeared largely disengaged, except in the 
non-science-based political maneuvering over the deposits of 
rockash authorized by the Mejia administration, and he does 
not seem to have been in dialogue with Jimenez on the parks. 
In contrast, Moya Pons, who told the Ambassador that upon 
confirmation he had taken a resolution "never to resign or to 
be forced out," applied his keen intelligence to study of the 
economic and social interests, the maps and the 
self-contradictory proposals of legislators, and to weighing 
politics as the art of the possible. 
HERTELL